Friday, November 27, 2009

From the real of experience through the real of language to the real of your experience of the poem. In that equation the poet is in the middle, in medias res, the mediator, responsible for and to language. As he [Creeley] said: “I believe in a poetry determined by the language of which it is made. I look to words, and nothing else, for my own redemption.”

Thursday, November 26, 2009

In The Best Australian Poems 2009, award-winning poet Robert Adamson puts together a selection of the most outstanding poems written by Australian authors over the past year. Alongside renowned names, the editor has solicited contributions from new and emerging poets and some of their work appears in print here for the first time. The result is a vibrant and fascinating edition of this much-loved anthology.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Michael Longley is the current Ireland Professor of Poetry, which entails residencies at universities including, Queen’s.During a trip to India, promoting the univeristy, he sat for an interview. Some of his answers follow. I don't necessarikly agree with them but I find him interesting.

He calls himself old-fashioned. “I believe in the Muse, in waiting for poetry to come.” That is why despite the stimulus of being in “strange places”, he is unsure if his next poem will be on India.

“Chattiness destroys poetry. Poetry can’t exist without compression,” says the poet who regularly prunes his lines. He has an imagery to describe his belief. Prose, he says, is a river. Poetry a fountain. “A fountain is shapely yet free-flowing. In free verse, you miss the shape.”

...

“But the poet is not like a journalist. It takes time for things to settle to an imaginative depth. There is a notion in Ireland that civic unrest is good for poetry. I think that is a repulsive idea as is the idea that art must provide solace to people. Poetry cannot set out to be relevant.” Most of the poetry that came out of Vietnam, he feels, is rubbish.‘Anything, however small, may make a poem; nothing, however big, is certain to’.

...

“I live for the next poem,” he says. Longley’s wife Edna, accompanying him on the tour, is a critic (“the best,” he mutters, grudging and gloating). “Had it not been for her, my oeuvre would have been three times in volume.” His most acclaimed poetry — including the award-winning Gorse Fires (1991) and The Weather in Japan (2000) — came after eight years of silence. “Middle age is not good for poetry,” he feels....

So, be warned, you middle-aged poets with social conscience: perhaps a retreat of some years may be best practice!

Saturday, November 21, 2009

My dog listened to every word I said with a quizzical ear ... and yet ... and yet ...

It will also be repeated on Thursday afternoon 26 November 3pm on Radio National in most States of Australia but 4pm in Western Australia. A beautiful programme put together with haunting music and sensitive readings by Ron Sims.

OK, so it’s four hundred years since Thomas Thorpe published Shakespeare’s sonnets along with “A Lover’s Complaint”, and people are still finding their own emotions in them, still questioning the situations which inspired them, still transforming their creative energy into theses, fictions, scripts, paintings, and music.

To celebrate this anniversary, the Melbourne Shakespeare Society invites entries to a competition for the 155th SONNET.

Competitors are free to interpret the need for a 155TH SONNET, for instance, to include sonnets “in Shakespeare’s voice”, comments on love, the sonnet, us and the times of Shakespeare – and so on. The judges acknowledge the creative variation of the sonnet form as practised in Shakespeare’s time and since. The judges’ decision is final.

Entries: A previously unpublished sonnet, titled or sub-titled “The 155th Sonnet”.Format: Each sonnet in typescript on one side of an A4 sheet of paper. The poet’s name must not be on this sheet, but supplied with address and contact details (email/phone) on a separate sheet of paper, with title and opening line of the poem.

The judges are Kevin Brophy and Judith Rodriguez. The winner and runner-up will be announced at the end of the 1pm, December 12 reading of “The Rape of Lucrece” by the Melbourne Shakespeare Society, at the English-Speaking Union, 146 West Toorak Road, South Yarra 3181.

At the Society’s 2pm December 19 meeting at St Francis’ Pastoral Centre, Lonsdale St, the prize-winning poems will be read, if possible by the poets, and released in print in The Melbourne Shakespearean; writers of other entries may be invited to read or be published. Publication at ASA rates; copyright remains with the poets.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

In the gentle and incisive world of Haiku poetry, the 18th century, Japanese poet ISSA is still regarded as a giant talent in these 'little, one-breath poems'.http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/stories/2009/2694426.htm - 3pm on ABC National Radio 21 November 2009. Repeated on Thursday 26 November 2009 at 3pm most States, 4pm in Western Australia.

I tell you this because I do make comments in it. The programme was compiled and produced by Ron Sims, recording engineer, photographer, sculptor and who knows what else.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

As I said in relation to the poem Tides which I posted recently, I am keyboarding in the full text of an old book of mine, 'Mother Waits For Father Late', the purpose of which (this activity) will become apparent in time.

The actual close reading of each word and each line, the punctuation and setting out on the page, is very interesting to me. Poem by poem, I can see the influences in my life at the time of composition, and can feel the memory of some of my editing decisions. It is like walking through and meeting again ghosts of those creative moments passed in a completely different frame of mind, a completely different frame of physical reference.

Yesterday I went to a reading at The Moon Cafe by Amanda Joy for the Perth Poetry Club. The audience was a lot smaller than such an interesting and talented poet deserved, so I am glad I attended. When they asked me if I'd like to read, I at first said no because I had not brought any books or typescripts with me, but then I thought of the poems I know by heart from those early days of discovery of modern American poetry, changed my mind, and said yes. So, with a pseudo-American accent which wouldn't have fooled an intern customs officer, I performed Big High Song for Somebody by Philip Whalen, one of my all time favourite poets. I had real fun performing like that, so I have resolved to work on my own work in a more performative way, to express the rhythm and pace of the poems with more vitality than simply reading them.

But it did bring back to my mind, again like the keyboarding instance, the poetic influences and passions of decades gone by, all of which stream into my creative practice today, for good or bad.

The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen is edited by Michael Rothenberg, and published by Wesleyan University Press, Connecticut, in 2007.

Thanks to Amanda Joy for the photo above, clicked with an iPhone - the wonders of today's technology. In times gone by, just decades ago, we would have been waiting for the chemist to open tomorrow morning to place our roll of film in for developing, and then waiting for some days before the prints returned. As for showing them to all of you in the many countries where you reside, I would have been - pleasantly - travelling for weeks.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

It is possible I have written too much sadnessto leave it at that who begat whattime has swallowed women swelling throughseasons O my luck to be the broken boyof mother’s blind womb born in open urbanityso certified in birth my paperlife beginsI have writhen through my first cry in songsswelling in women and swallowed in whisperseach summer beached in the white belly of yearstears and laughter torn as begat and forgottenwomen in season swelling to waves of touchthe sharp skin ache in the weathers of nightchilling the transient dunes in dissolutiona moonlit dome in her shadow play. It ispossible I have not sung enough of loveto reach the swelling of ill reasonmy rising tide beached between thighsbegotten in listless waves of two-lipspeakers singing the ocean to shorebetween the rolling reefs gone now inthe frightened fish-dash of time shadowsswelling like flesh a woman remembers sorolls down a dune her swollen ache

*

This poem closed the collection titled Mother Waits For Father Late, published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press (now Fremantle Press) in 1992. Jeanette and I are typing the book up again for another purpose, so I thought I'd just share this poem with you. I think it was influenced by my reading of WS Merwin at that time, although I'm not certain. It certainly is different to a lot of my writing, which is why it is interesting to me still.

Check it out before this afternoon when Amanada Joy and others will be reading 2-4pm at Perth Poetry Club which is now performed at The Moon Cafe, 323 William Street, Northbridge (near the corner of Newcastle Street).

Thank you for allowing me the privilege of reading these five dozen or so entries. It sounds glib and clichéd to tell you they were all of a high standard, but it is true.

When Josephine Clarke handed me the entries, she said, “I don’t envy you your task.” I replied, “Well, I’ve judged a couple of dozen such competitions so I can do it easily.”

I tell you this as a joke at my own expense. It was anything but easy. The high standard of entries made even the first cull difficult. I normally start by reading all competition entries quickly and putting those aside which simply don’t measure up as poetry. Clichéd language, clichéd thought, ponderous rhythms and obvious anvil rhymes are normally the weaknesses which first show up. No such troubles here.

I did puzzle over how this high standard was achieved, and came to this conclusion: because of the closeness of the OOTA group, you have all learnt to edit your poems vigorously. It proves that old dictum which I quote frequently: All good writing is rewriting. I am certain your workshop leaders have had a very positive influence on you all and for this they too should be applauded.

The main problems which knocked out the early casualties were not craft problems, per se, but art weaknesses. Many of these poems were well written descriptions, with nothing else to them. Some started with lively promise and lapsed into unimaginative writing; some said it well, once, and then repeated it again, in different words, to create a longer poem. All good writing is rewriting, as I quoted before, but rewriting the same idea in the same text is tautology!

The number of poems which where still in the race after my first and second reading remained at 22. Far too many. I went away asking myself what is a better poem than a good poem?! These were good poems and I had to exorcise a dozen of them. So, I reverted to a list of objective questions, a list I have found effective in my teaching practice over many years:

* Are the images effective?* Is the diction fresh?* Are there sound devices?* Does the poem make use of rhythm?* Does the poem contain some type of tension?* What is the essential unity of the poem?

Passing the poems through this list of questions, I whittled it down to twelve. And there I stuck.

By this stage I had read each of these poems many times. Those that grew in statue with repeated readings rose to the top of the list, but I must say that any one of the top three could have been the over all winner. When it came to that decision, it was my personal gut feeling that ruled the day.

Congratulations to the winners and to the place getters, and ALL who entered. If you didn’t crack a mention in the winners’ circle, it doesn’t mean your poem is of no value. It simply means that this judge’s criteria put others before it. Another judge, or another editor, may have a different opinion.

Thank you to all involved in Spilt Ink. Judging this competition has been a challenging but a satisfying experience for me.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

someone ordered a bloody mariasomeone didn’t want to be theresomeone claimed to be smashedsomeone couldn’t really tellsomeone’s light brought the mothssomeone’s voice was a bellsomeone was talking nonsensesomeone was capable of anythingsomeone fell through glasssomeone was skewered with shardssomeone’s sex drive was in overdrivesomeone didn’t know the way homesomeone was a honeypotsomeone was over the Moonsomeone was wrangling the beessomeone kissed someonesomeone did somebody elsesomeone wanted to have group sexsomeone danced with someonesomeone was nobodies boysomeone rejected their fan basesomeone passed someone a jointsomeone forgot about everythingsomeone had nothing to tellsomeone was guilty as chargedand someone was visiting hell.Real Question of a Three Day Hangover

My hangover was in its third day and I can't cookthe longest hangover in history grumps sonas he knives chicken breastsinto the tiny pieces he lovesnot careless chunks I cutafter relentless years of sating daily hungermy brain stops on my three day hangovernumber one daughter drives me to shopnew to town she forgets the way and so do Iwhy am I doing all the thingsmy mother told me not to?I ask as I wave goodbyein my socks in the rain.

on the third day of my hangoverwords are dead rats from my mouthlong distance daughter scoldsshe should be the one going to pub poetrybeing deafened by boy bands

The real question is:Where are the slim hippedworking class boyslean as pack wolveswilling to shareat the back of the pubbulges which strainedin their grease stained jeanswith whoever dared?

The Red and Gold Wedding Sheets

Through the thickness of nightwe sleep side by sidein the red and gold wedding sheets from China.

When we bought them our interpreter, Tian, whose name means sky, told me about red. The luckiest of colours means fertility, happiness, harmony. I know it is for sex, war, blood. Red is for sex. I said. She stopped surprised eyed as if she had never heard of such a thing and flushed red.

When we were at the museum, Tian, whose name means sky, told us the Chinese were more highly evolved as they had less hair and were therefore less apelike. We told her that all races have a common ancestor. Hair was a response to environment. She stopped surprised eyed as if she had never heard of such a thing and flushed red.

When we were at the temple of the wild goose I began to chant ohm mani pad ma hum. How you know this, Tian, whose name means sky demanded. After she interpreted the story of a wild goose falling dead from the sky to indicate the spot where the temple was to be erected. She mused: How can this be true? Maybe it isn’t. I replied. She stopped surprised eyed as if she had never heard of such a thing and flushed red.

In our red and gold wedding sheets from Chinawe are lucky happy harmoniousuntil we are savage with sex and war and blood.

Coral Carter Born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, became a nomad but seems settled in Bayswater, Western Australia for now. Barely published. Brought up on Banjo now loves Bukowski. Reads most weeks at the Perth Poetry Club.

'A man once dipped a hatful of water from a stream. What did that amount to? I am not that stream. I am at the stream, but I do nothing. Other people are at the same stream, but most of them find they have to do something with it. I do nothing. I never think that I am the one who must see to it that cherries grow on stalks. I stand and behold, admiring what nature can do.'

Monday, November 09, 2009

The opening scene is an Australian soldier, 1943, in the thick and steamy jungles of New Guinea, in a clearing, in a jeep with two fuzzy-wuzzies, as he called them, with him. You can’t see it in this photo but he is wearing long shorts. You can see an open army fatigue shirt, a rifle slung slantwise over his shoulder, a .303 most probably, maybe – although it isn’t likely – the rifle I learnt to shoot on later in college-boy army cadets, wearing old uniforms from World War II, parading after school in the playground of a leafy college. It is different shooting at targets in peacetime in a firing range by the Indian Ocean to firing at Japanese soldiers in wartime in a New Guinea jungle.

I stared at the photo in our sunroom by the river. I stared and tried to imagine my father dodging bullets, firing bullets, in the thick humid air, the lush growth beneath steamy skies. I stared like I stared earlier at breakfast at King Willy Weetie holding up a box of his own cereal with his image on it holding up a box of his cereal with his own image on it, again and again, ad infinitum. I tried to count how many images I could see of King Willy, how many images echoed back to the Beginning. Who knew?. Maybe the printer who made the box. I stared at my father with two natives in the jungle in the same way, mesmerized, unable to puzzle out how all the other images of father came to this one in my hand on a pillow in our sunroom by the Swan River. I came from one of these images of my father. Maybe before, maybe after this photo, he left the jeep and waved to his native friends and crawled into bed with my mother way over on the east coast of Australia, in a suburb where the war was headline material and the ladies knitted for the boys ‘over there’. I wriggled loose from that soldier in his fatigues and swam harder than I have ever been able to swim again, swam that night or day in the mysteries of my mother’s body to an egg that, like a Siren, called for me, and we embraced.

-

I pulled into the parking area behind the church hall so no one would see me. You can’t be too careful, can you. This night could make or break me, and I was nervous. You wouldn’t have known it. I present well: all you will see is the mask over the mask before the mask. Underneath them all must be me, insecure, overweight, depressed. Suck in the night air, smelling of eucalypts and parking lot dust. White Ford Cortina Ghia or green Holden Kingswood station wagon? I can’t remember and it matters not one iota. But life is made up of little things, isn’t it. From little things, big things grow, Paul Kelly sings. Just split an atom and see.

I walked around the old weatherboard hall and up a few steps. Inside the hall the lights were on and a man waited at the door to greet all comers.

.

I am no one special. A writer, yes, and once upon a time I thought that made me special. An Australian, a male, a chatterbox – none of these characteristics are particularly special. So, why am I writing this autobiography? Well, some people close to me have asked for it, but truly it is for a different reason: to stick to the truth. There are variations, let’s call them, of certain events in my life, variations I have created and spoken so often I myself believe them. His Bobship once sang, He not busy being born is busy dying. Here I am adding to my birth, attempting to find the true Andrew, or even that person I am before I am named by my parents. We don’t come into this world with a name, do we – just a gender and a string of inclinations and inherited characteristics.

.

Today I chewed a fingernail off. Today I pulled a hair out of the top curve of my ear. Today my body, this house of who I am, is growing, is changing, is throwing a shadow, is taking it back again, is pulsing and rhythmic. Today this body is a link in the chain that is me. I’m surprised I am not a papier mache sculpture, all the pages I have read and written glued together layer over layer, waste bins full of over-valued thoughts, searching soul inventories, shopping lists of the heart and poems of the ego. Today I am sixty five, titular proprietor of this body corporate, and writing this.

Max RichardsMax Richards <cooee@netspace.net.au> was born and educated in Auckland, New Zealand, studied in Edinburgh, and from 1967 taught literature and writing for many years at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Critical articles and reviews on Hardy, Edward Carpenter, MacNeice, Larkin, Heaney; Curnow, Glover, Baxter and other NZ poets; Peter Porter, Judith Wright, Les Murray and other Australians. Like William Hart-Smith on whom he has written, he is a poet of two countries. His books are 'Under Mount Egmont and other poems', 'Catch of the Day', and a recent booklet 'Ruffey and Nearby'. He lives in Doncaster, Melbourne,and teaches creative writing at his local arts centre.illustration from http://www.singermemories.com/singer-empire.html

Thursday, November 05, 2009

we make so much use of rocks/ and then who first thought to break them down into their elements / when did we start tothink we are stardust

sequence of events/ and then

what can be made from a heartwithout a body or vice versa

/ and then / when I asked you to take my placeyou asked if I was here to stay I wasn’t sure if I was forgotten or lost

Time is colourless / and thenI think I once swallowed a day whole without thinking

/ and then these ways we avoid fullness here I will make another void for someone else’s ghost

a window holds a skya valley shapes a reservoira body is its organs

deep places hold water longer

Bio NotesAmanda Joy is a poet, sculptor, installation artist and songwriter born in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. She currently lives, works and gardens in Fremantle and travels as often as she can, mostly between France and Australia. Her poetry has been published in various journals online and in print such as Cottonmouth, Up The Staircase Literary Review, Numbat, Killpoet, Fragile Arts Quarterly, Alabaster and Mercury, Heroin Love Songs, The Toronto Quarterly, Black Listed Magazine and The Best Australian Poems 2009(ed. Robert Adamson, pub. BlackInc.).She has a fascination with portals and conduits and every now and then she pops out a little limited edition illustrated chapbook for those who ask nicely. A tiny, yet sincere chapbook of her poetry, Not Enough To Fold was lovingly published through Verve Bath Press early this year. A more sizeable binding of her wordage is gestating.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Winter trees cough like old menabout death's white nightmareswhile the rain talks in Latin.They cough about the sobbing tragicash, they bind valises for leaving,they darken—and in the chillof frost from the sun, the lungsbristle to see coffins hiddenin the dry capes of kings.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

I had the privilege recently to judge the OOTA 2009 Poetry Competition, named Split Ink. Here is the short list of finalists from which three prize winners have been selected and will be announced at a Gala Evening on Thursday, November 12th, at X-Wray Cafe, Essex Street, Fremantle.